Breeding and Raising Babies

Breeding is an important part of the game, especially if your aim is to have powerful creatures. This guide will explain how to breed and raise creatures. Mutations will be covered in a separate guide which you can find here.

Breeding

Mating

To mate creatures, choose one male and one or several females of a same species, and Enable wandering on them. Mating creatures will have red hearts beating above their name tag, and a mating bar will appear on the females’ HUD. A way to keep your creatures still while mating would be to whistle All stay put (default U) until the mating bar reaches 100% and red hearts disappear.

For species that I am mass breeding, I use a pen made of gates (behemoth or dinosaur gates, depending on the creature) where I enclose the dinos for breeding. Females are constantly wandering, and I enable wandering on the male when I want to raise babies or have eggs. With this method you do not need to whistle All stay put as creatures are staying in the pen.

Incubation & Gestation

Before the baby is there, the only difference between egg-laying creatures and mammals is, obviously, the way the offspring will develop.

With mammals, after mating, females will enter a gestation phase during which their belly will swell. Different species have different gestation times which can be seen on the Gestation bar (yellow). As the baby is developing inside, there is no need to control the temperature around. Just make sure the mother has plenty of food.

Below is the table of all the current mammals in game and their gestation times.

Species

Gestation time

Jerboa/Mesopithecus

00:39:40

Direbear/Hyaenodon/Procoptodon/Woolly rhino

00:59:30

Bulbdog/Direwolf/Ovis/Purlovia/Ravager/Sabertooth/

Shinehorn

01:02:00

Doedicurus/Roll rat

01:14:00

Megaloceros

01:31:00

Gigantopithecus

01:39:00

Basilosaurus/Castoroides/Chalicotherium/

Daeodon/Dunkleosteus/Ichthyosaurus/

Mammoth/Manta/Megalodon/Megatherium/

Mosasaurus/Otter/Paraceratherium/Plesiosaurus

01:59:00

Reaper king

03:00:00 (online time)

With egg-laying creatures, females drop an egg, which can be picked up. You can see two bars when an egg is on the floor: Egg Incubation (blue) and Egg Health (red). Eggs can be put in a fridge if you do not wish to incubate right away, without any consequences on their health. Eggs have different ranges of temperature at which they need to be kept in order to incubate, as well as different incubation times. Some eggs need cold, some need warmth. Some can tolerate a big range of temperatures while others quickly decay if they are out of their comfort temperatures. Drop an egg on the floor, and check its HUD. Three different messages can be written above the incubation bar: “Too Cold!”, “Too Hot!” or “Incubating…”. The goal here is obviously to reach the “Incubating…” message, as the other two will cause its health to decrease.

The easiest way to keep a constantly perfect temperature for a great number of species is to have as many Airconditioners as possible. I usually have at least 15 AC in my incubation room.

At an earlier stage, you can use Campfires/Standingtorches/Walltorches around your egg and turn them on or off until you find the right temperature. This is obviously harder to control, as you will need to keep an eye on your egg in case temperature falls or rises too much for it to incubate properly, for example during weather events or night time. This is also more complicated if you are not in a colder area, as you will only be able to provide warmth for the eggs, and not decrease the temperature.

/!\ Aquatic creatures will lay en egg as soon as the mating process is over. Those eggs are not temperature dependent, and cannot be picked up, which means the incubation will start right away.

Below is the table of all the egg-laying creatures in game and their incubation times.

Species

Incubation time

Compy/Dodo/Lystrosaurus

00:12:30

Dilophosaur/Oviraptor/Pegomastax/Troodon

00:17:00

Carbonemys

00:18:44

Dimorphodon/Vulture

00:20:00

Gallimimus/Iguanodon/Microraptor/

Pachycephalosaurus/Parasaur

00:22:00

Hesperornis/Kairuku

00:22:43

Allosaurus/Carnotaurus/Featherlight/Ichthyornis/

Megalosaurus/Pelagornis/Pteranodon/Tapejara/

Therizinosaurus

00:25:00

Baryonyx/Kaprosuchus/Megalania/Raptor/Terror bird

00:30:00

Dimetrodon/Glowtail/Morellatops/Pachyrhinosaurus/

Sarcosuchus/Thorny dragon/Triceratops

00:37:30

Ankylosaurus/Archaeopteryx/Moschops

00:39:30

Stegosaurus/Kentrosaurus

00:41:40

Argentavis

00:44:00

Spinosaurus

00:57:40

Anglerfish/Beelzebufo/Brontosaurus/Diplocaulus/

Diplodocus/Electrophorus/Rex/Tusoteuthis/Yutyrannus

01:15:00

Rock drake

01:33:00

Quetzalcoatlus

04:10:00

Giganotosaurus

12:30:00

Raising

Feeding

Right after being born or hatched, a baby needs to be claimed. Anyone can claim a baby, so be careful that no unwanted players are around. Claiming a baby will only grant the Riderbonus to the player who claimed it, so keep that in mind (see Imprinting & Rider bonus).

A baby creature’s life is divided in three phases: Baby (0-10%), Juvenile (10-50%) and Adolescent (50-100%). It only needs to be hand fed while in Baby stage, so until it reaches 10% of its maturation time and can carry 10% of its total weight. As with gestation and incubation, different species have different maturation times, leading to a different amount of time a baby needs to be hand fed. At the beginning you will probably find the need to stay until it reaches Juvenile to make sure it doesn’t run out of food. But you will quickly notice that there is a point where a baby can carry enough food to reach Juvenile on its own.

From Juvenile until the end of its maturation, a baby will be able to eat directly from a Feeding trough, so make sure to place some in range. Fill the troughs with the correct food – meat for carnivores, berries for herbivores – and make sure to fill it on a regular basis so babies do not starve. Babies will eat less and less as they grow.

Imprinting & Rider bonus

Imprinting

Imprinting will help you improve the stats of a baby. If a creature reaches 100% imprinting, it will get all its stats increased by 20% but Stamina and Oxygen – and Movement Speed for flying creatures. This is a pretty nice bonus to have especially if you are looking to defeat the bosses or just to improve your creatures. To know the final bonus percentage you got from raising a creature, use this formula:

Imprinting bonus =Imprinting x 20 / 100

Example: I reached 78% on a baby rex, its stats will be increased by 78×20/100 = 15.6%. The baby was born with 7k HP and 300% melee damage, with this 78% imprinting bonus it ends up with 8092 HP and 346.8% melee damage.

During its maturation, you will be prompted to take care of the baby every 8 hours. On AstralArk servers, any tribe member can help with imprinting and interact with the baby. You can be asked three different interactions:

Baby wants to cuddle: Simply press E on the baby to cuddle it

Baby wants to walk: Whistle Followme on the baby and walk as far as possible in a straight line until the action is completed. This seems a bit buggy at the moment, as sometimes you will not even need to move to complete the care, and sometimes you will have to go back and forth until it is finally done

Baby wants a kibble: If on The Island/The Center/Ragnarok, a kibble will randomly be asked among this list – ankylosaurus, carbonemys, dilophosaur, dimetrodon, dimorphodon, dodo, gallimimus, lystrosaurus, pachycephalosaurus, parasaur, pteranodon, raptor, stegosaurus, terror bird, triceratops. If on Scorched Earth, a kibble will randomly be asked among this list – ankylosaurus, morellatops (camelsaurus), gallimimus, lystrosaurus, mantis, parasaur, raptor, terror bird, thorny dragon, vulture. If on Aberration, a kibble will randomly be asked among this list – ankylosaurus, baryonyx, carbonemys, carnotaurus, dimetrodon, featherlight, glowtail, raptor, rock drake, spinosaurus, stegosaurus, triceratops. If raising a Wyvern, it will ask for Wyvern milk. If raising a Rock drake, it can ask for Nameless venom. Put the kibble/milk/venom in the last slot of your hotbar and press E on the baby to feed it

/!\ The interval between cares is set to 8 hours. Most of the important creatures are covered with this interval, however this means that those which mature faster will not be able to be imprinted and will not receive any bonus.

Below is the table of the percentage each creatures gets per care.

Species

% per care

Archaeopteryx/Dodo/Lystrosaurus

/

Dilophosaur/Otter/Oviraptor/Troodon

/

Carbonemys

/

Dimorphodon/Vulture

/

Gallimimus/Ichthyosaurus/Pachycephalosaurus/

Parasaur

/

Hesperornis/Kairuku

/

Jerboa/Mesopithecus/Morellatops/Pegomastax

/

Angler fish/Beelzebufo/Diplocaulus/Ichthyornis/

Kaprosuchus/Manta/Megalania/Pelagornis/

Pteranodon/Raptor

100

Allosaurus/Baryonyx/Carnotaurus/

Dimetrodon/Direbear/Electrophorus/Hyaenodon/

Iguanodon/Pachyrhinosaurus/Procoptodon/

Sarcosuchus/Terror bird/Triceratops/Woolly rhino

100

Ankylosaurus/Bulbdog/Daeodon/Direwolf/Featherlight/

Glowtail/Moschops/Ovis/Purlovia/Ravager/Sabertooth/

Shinehorn/Thorny dragon/Thylacoleo

100

Kentrosaurus/Stegosaurus

100

Argentavis/Microraptor/Tapejara

100

Doedicurus/Equus/Roll rat

100

Castoroides

100

Megaloceros/Spinosaurus

50

Gigantopithecus

50

Reaper king

50

Chalicotherium/Mammoth

50

Brontosaurus/Compy/Diplodocus/Dunkleosteus/Mantis/

Megalodon/Megalosaurus/Megatherium/

Paraceratherium/Rex/Rock drake/Wyvern/

50

Phiomia/Therizinosaurus

33

Basilosaurus/Plesiosaur/Quetzal/Yutyrannus

20

Giganotosaurus/Mosasaurus/Tusoteuthis

13

Rider bonus

The rider bonus grants additional damage and resistance for a creature if it is ridden by the player who claimed it. If a creature reaches 100% imprinting and is ridden by the player who claimed it, it will have an additional 30% damage and resistance. To know the final rider bonus you got from raising your creature, use this formula:

Rider bonus = Imprinting x 30 / 100

Example: My 78% baby rex will have a bonus of 78×30/100=23.4% damage and resistance when I ride it. From 346.8% melee damage, it will deal an additional 23.4×346.8/100=81% of damage, reaching approximately 428%.